The Projective Consciousness Model and Phenomenal Selfhood

We summarize our recently introduced Projective Consciousness Model (PCM) (Rudrauf et al., 2017) and relate it to outstanding conceptual issues in the theory of consciousness. The PCM combines a projective geometrical model of the perspectival phenomenological structure of the field of consciousness with a variational Free Energy minimization model of active inference, yielding an account of the cybernetic function of consciousness, viz., the modulation of the field’s cognitive and affective dynamics for the effective control of embodied agents. The geometrical and active inference components are linked via the concept of projective transformation, which is crucial to understanding how conscious organisms integrate perception, emotion, memory, reasoning, and perspectival imagination in order to control behavior, enhance resilience, and optimize preference satisfaction. The PCM makes substantive empirical predictions and fits well into a (neuro)computationalist framework. It also helps us to account for aspects of subjective character that are sometimes ignored or conflated: pre-reflective self-consciousness, the first-person point of view, the sense of minenness or ownership, and social self-consciousness. We argue that the PCM, though still in development, offers us the most complete theory to date of what Thomas Metzinger has called “phenomenal selfhood.”